Yeah, don't stress the replies or comments that you leave on other people's posts. They won't lower your voting power or SP. People understand, if you are new, because they have also been in your shoes, and low on voting power. (I'm really low right now)
When you're new or low on Steem Power (SP) a pretty good rule of thumb is about 10 votes per day. Then in about 24 hours, that Steem Power replenishes and you're back at about 100%. So, yeah you have to limit your upvotes to just the posts or comments that you really like. I'd probably need at least 50 votes per day to upvote everything I like lately. So much good silver and good people. Sometimes a well thought out reply, or useful information, is worth much more to the author than the few cents from an upvote.
Try going to Steem Now in the link below, and typing in your Steemit user name. It will show your voting percentage and how many hours to get back to 100% I save the site in my favorites, so I can monitor it. Also shows you who upvoted you and how much you have earned in your account.
https://www.steemnow.com
Awesome... So commenting and replying is free. UpVoting costs... assets. And.... ReSteeming? I assume that's not free?
Yes, you can Resteem some else's post without hurting your voting power or your Steem Power (SP), to help promote them to YOUR followers. Like a retweet on twitter. So say you have 200 people following you, you could promote a friend's post that you like. And now it will be seen on all 200 of YOUR followers' "feed". Your feed is what the people that only you follow have posted today.
You'd probably never find my post if your weren't following me, because it would be lost within the thousands of posts that everyone around the world made today. So if you are following @jbcoin, and I make a post about a new coin I got today, when you click on your feed, mine is in there somewhere.
If you Resteem my coin post, now all of your followers see my coin post too. We probably have a few followers in common, but for the most part you are helping me reach all new people.
Man... very nice of you to write the explanation for such a limited audience, haha. I appreciate you helping me out :D
No problem at all, thats what we do. I felt just like you at the beginning. Fuck this shit, waste of time, can't get off the ground. You meet people that help you. You join groups to support little guys. And before long you're helping others yourself. Everyone helping each other just a little, but it adds up. Either new users with upvotes, or spending tiny amount to give your buddy's post a nice bot upvote payout, or just helping to promote their good content. I've got youtube videos with just a few watches over years...same concept.
Nice thing about the blockchain, another new guy a year from now can still read it and be helped. It's here to stay.